From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Regime change" is the replacement of one regime with another. While it is
widely believed that the term was first coined by former US PresidentBill Clinton,[1] use of
the term dates to at least 1925.[2]

Regime change can occur through conquest by a foreign power, revolution, coup d'état or
reconstruction following the failure of a state. Regime change may
replace all or part of the state's existing institutions,
administrative apparatus, bureaucracy and other elements.

Regime change can be used in a euphemistic sense to describe the unilateral imposition of one nation's will
onto another through military force. In mass media the term is often associated with
measures imposed by external forces rather than internal
revolutions and coups.

The term regime change can also be applied to bodies other than
nation states.[1]

Regime change by a foreign
power

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Examples

Overthrow of unfriendly governments by the United States can
be found throughout the past 50 years [4]. Regime
change in Iraq became a stated
goal of United States foreign policy when Public Law 105-338 (the
"Iraq
Liberation Act") was signed into law by U.S. President Bill
Clinton. The act directed that:

"It should be the policy of the United States to support
efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in
Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that
regime."

Besides US-led regime changes there were numerous regime changes
produced by the Soviet
Union, such as in Outer Mongolia, in Tannu Tuwa in 1921,
in the independent republics in the Caucasus during the Russian
civil war, in the Baltic states in 1940, and in all of the East
European countries that fell under Soviet rule due to the Yalta
agreements of 1943.

A reasonably large number of countries underwent regime change
in the aftermath of the global conflicts of the twentieth century.
The First World War saw the breakup of the
Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman empires.[5] The Second World War saw the destruction of Nazi Germany and its
replacement first by an occupation regime and then by the modern Federal
Republic of Germany and the German
Democratic Republic, the re-establishment of Austria as the parliamentarian Second republic
and the adoption of a pacifist constitution by Japan. Of course, the former was preceded by Reich-induced regime change and puppet governments in
many European states. After the second world war, Britain's
granting of independence to various nations constituted a peaceful
externally-imposed régime change.

One of the bloodiest regime change in Europe was due to the coup
d'état of Generalissimo Francisco Franco in Spain in 1936, itself a reaction to the abolition
of the kingdom and the establishment of a republican regime in
1931.

In academic
use

In addition to the above uses, the term 'regime change' can also
be used in a more general sense, particularly in academic work, to
refer to a change in political institutions or laws that affect the
nature of the system as a whole. For example, the end of the Bretton
Woods system was a regime change in the international system,
as was the repeal of the National Mandatory Speed
Limit in the United States. Regime changes are often viewed as
ideal opportunities for natural experiments by social scientists.